I’ve been using Opal for over a year, and I enjoy how it blocks apps better than the Apple ScreenTime. However, I just got the new update today, which is mostly cool, but I do have some things I’d like to change. Some changes are removing what I liked about Opal. (I can edit and put as separate posts if needed, but did not want to post multiple in short times).
- Where did the friends leaderboard go? Seeing my friends’ screentimes would help me get off my phone and use less. I cannot find it literally anywhere.
- Screen time on main screen. I believe another user posted about the same thing, but I would like to see my screen time on the main page again. I used to just quickly check my Opal screen time by opening the app and glancing at it (to see it compared to Apple’s default, which includes things like Maps and phone calls).
- Sleep Assistant forces unblock limit. I like sleep assistant because it encourages me to be off my phone while not strictly enforcing it, which I do with a “rule” or whatever it’s called now (prev. a focus session). The unblock limit means that it becomes a strict thing, which I don’t want. I’d like for my distracting apps to be harder to access, not impossible after a certain amount of tries. Sometimes my sleep schedule changes due to work, meaning I need to access apps that would normally be blocked by sleep assistant, but not always allowed.
- Blocked groups is gone? Maybe I just haven’t figured it out yet but when I go to the quick timer, which I don’t mind being on its own page, I have to manually select every app I want to block. On average, my sessions block 30-40 apps. I don’t want to have to spend fifteen minutes selecting each app I want to block before I can even set the timer. (It could also be that the blocked apps stay after the timer is over and I’m just not used to the new update yet.)
- When adding apps to “distracting” or “always allowed”, it doesn’t say if one was already selected. Pretty straightforward. If I go to select an app to add to either, I can’t tell if it’s already been selected or not.
- Limit to always allowed apps. Similarly to above: I can’t add as many Always Allowed Apps as I want. Why? I understand not wanting every app to be always allowed, but as said previously, I need dozens of apps for work and school. I can’t be worrying if they’re going to get accidentally blocked by screentime, right when I need to show something to my boss.
- AI features off toggle. I don’t want AI in my life, especially in my screentime app. When I went to go to support for some of the UI changes, it took me to a chatbot (which I don’t like using) instead of an FAQ or actual support like on the website. I am also pretty sure the Autofocus feature uses AI (which is weird because I feel like it wouldn’t need to), and it’s probably integrated unnecessarily into other features. But I have many concerns with it, and I don’t want to have AI forced on me. If it’s integrated so deeply that this can’t be done, I also find that concerning, and will consider deleting Opal.
Some things that I do like are that you can add to both distracting and always allowed, because some of my communication apps count towards distracting time but I need always available. I also like the timer as an easily accessible tab.
I hope these are considered because I liked Opal as an app, but the new features are making it hard to use.